***I received a copy of Awakening Foster Kelly from the author in exchange for an honest review***

Awakening Foster Kelly by Cara Rosalie Olsen was a debut full of potential. The plot sounded interesting and the book is surrounded by good reviews. But it wasn't as wonderful as I hoped it was be. It was good, don't get me wrong, but not incredible.

Awakening Foster Kelly is the story of Foster, a incredibly shy, introverted high school senior with crippling self-doubt. And when she is forced to partner up for her Senior Piece Project, she is again told that she isn't wanted. Of course, that's just the beginning to her finding where she belongs...

The biggest problem I had with this novel was simple: it was 672 pages. I have no problem reading long books, in fact I quite enjoy them. But it has to be 672 pages of interesting, necessary plot and dialogue. And that's where this novel failed. There were many times as I journeyed through the pages where I thought the scene I was currently reading was filler. It could have and should have been cut from the novel. This novel jumps back and forth between memories and dreams and present events and a lot of the time there isn't a good transition. It got confusing quickly. And, like I said before, most of the flashbacks weren't really necessary to the plot--and they were long. So long they made you forget what the point of recalling the memory was.

Also, the author was a little word happy--and not in a good way. It seemed like every other page included a word that didn't fit (and half of which I didn't know), like she was trying to make the sentences and the story sound overly intelligent. And again, it the words weren't necessary.

However, I did love the romance. The slow building fire between Dominic and Foster was true to her personality and I swooned a lot. Dominic was very swoon worthy--though, his character introduction was extremely douche-y. He made up for it, without a doubt.

Honestly, I did really enjoy this novel. But the failures trumped the successes too many times to be completely forgivable.